


Adverse Effects

by suchaprettyface



Series: The Dreamfasting [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Broken Woobie Loki, Captivity, Dreams and Nightmares, Everyone Needs A Hug, M/M, Major Character Injury, No actual sex, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture, shared memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:45:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchaprettyface/pseuds/suchaprettyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which things escalate quickly.  </p><p>I really suck at picking content warnings - the non-con part is a memory, not moment for moment but all jumbled up, and not exactly graphic but pretty freaking awful.  I went ahead and labeled it "explicit" just to be safe.  I don't plan on including a lot of this sort of thing in the series, which is why I didn't put an archive warning on it, but it was important to establish that we're dealing with a pretty horrifically screwed up individual here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adverse Effects

The next time I saw him, I was dying.

It always seems to happen so quickly: you look over at your buddy amid gunfire and explosions, and he grins at you.  Then you look again and he flies backward, blood spraying out of his chest or the back of his head blown off.  From one to zero:  from alive to dead in the space of a breath.

I hit the ground hard with Barton on top of me where I’d dragged him behind the overturned truck.  The shot had almost sent pieces of him all over the woods. He’d hit the shooter a millisecond after the round was fired, but it was long enough.  From one to zero:  mercenary, dead mercenary, an arrow in his eye.

Barton rolled off me and came up shooting, taking out a man who’d made it past Tony and would have headed for the stately old manor where, according to SHIELD intel, a couple dozen Enhanced were hiding, mostly kids.  The guy who owned the place had set it up as a school; we’d heard the mercenaries, hired by someone pretty high on the Hydra food chain, were going to attempt to infiltrate the place and make off with the kids.  SHIELD wanted them Indexed, of course, but regardless of their agenda, I could agree with one important aspect of the mission: keeping those mercs from laying a hand on a bunch of innocent children.

There would be time to argue with Fury about it once we got out of there alive.

I started to get up and retrieve my shield, but sudden pain stabbed deep into my side.  I fell over again, groaning, and reached down to feel for a wound.

Adrenaline is a funny thing – even when you’re not a superhero.  You hear stories of women lifting cars off trapped babies.  What’s way more common is idiots getting shot and not feeling it until they’re about to lose consciousness from blood loss.

Even I only have so much blood.

Sure enough, the round meant to take Barton out of the equation had hit me in the lower back, on the right – I could already barely move.  _Kidney_ , I thought. 

Barton saw and dropped to his knees next to me. _“Cap? Can you hear me? Hang on, I’ve got Med-Evac on the way. We’ve got the bastards routed, there are just a few to clean up – Steve – look at me.  Keep your eyes open.  Steve –“_

Everything faded to white.

I opened my eyes groggily and tried to focus on what was above me.  The battlefield was silent, or…no, it wasn’t.  I could hear…

…wind chimes?

I turned my head and my eyebrows shot up in surprise.

I was looking at the sky outside a huge open balcony; it was night, the air cool and fragrant from the trailing vines all around the window.  The sky was a beautiful but odd blue-green color.

There were two moons.

One was full, the other a waning crescent.

Two moons.

I started to sit up, but a hand touched my shoulder and gently but firmly held me down.  I realized I was in a bed – a huge one, draped with sheer curtains that moved quietly in the breeze.  It was so incredibly peaceful that the weirdness of obviously being on another planet didn’t even bother me.

And sitting next to me, watching me in silence…

“Loki,” I said.  My throat hurt like I’d been screaming, but my pulse stepped up when I saw him.

“Captain.”

“Where am I?  Is this Asgard?”

“No…another realm even farther away…but you’re safe here.”

“Wait, am I…I’m asleep.”

A slow nod. 

“In the real world…I was shot. Dying.  Did you know that?  How did you find me?”

“Yes, I knew.  I found you the way I will always find you.”

“The dreamfasting.”

“Yes.  And yes, you are dying, or you were when I found you.  Right now I believe you are in a coma.”

Having established the basics, I demanded, “Where the hell did you go?  How did you get out of the Zoo?  Where are you now, for real? Why did you leave?”

Unsurprised by the barrage of questions, Loki smiled faintly.  “Calm down,” he told me, the hand on my shoulder sliding down my arm.  “You’ll make matters worse for your poor body back on Earth.”

“Answer me.”

A sigh.  “I told you no prison could hold me.  I would not have left…but one of my informants brought me news that, had it come to pass, would have broken my covenant with you not to let Midgard come to harm because of me.  So I left…I drew the threat away until I could end it.  I let my presence be known far from your world so that the next thugs trying to cash in on my status with Thanos will run astray.”

“More mercenaries?”

“And there will be more.  There is, it turns out, a rather substantial price on my head. Thanos is at last aware I did not die, and is understandably put out, especially after that nonsense with Ronan…but never mind that.”

“You could have told me all that before you disappeared.”

“I did not wish to cause you conflicted loyalties.”

I couldn’t stop staring at him. Thinking of that night, that dream, his mouth on me.  In all that time I’d tried desperately to push away the memories, and I’d nearly succeeded. I’d buried it in missions and training and the day to day life of an Avenger.  Thirty seconds here and it had all come roaring back, even with what I could assume were pretty serious circumstances in the world I’d left. “It’s been five months,” I said. “You could have dropped in on my sleep before I got shot in a major organ.”

“I know.  I was…after leaving you that night, I…I was afraid.”

“You?”

“It’s been known to happen.  I thought surely Captain America would regret suffering the touch of Midgard’s hated adversary.  I would rather have simply vanished than face condemnation from you.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it suffering.” I finally sat up, grabbing his wrist to stop him from trying to keep me down again.  “I don’t know how long we have here…”

“Not long.  Your doctors are, as they say, ‘doing all they can.’  I am afraid it doesn’t look good.”

I stared at him, reality hitting home – and explaining the look on his face.  “I really am dying.”

Very, very quietly:  “Yes.”

“You came here to tell me goodbye.”

Now he smiled.  “Not exactly.  I did come to make you an offer, though.”

“What offer?”

“I have been trying to learn more about dreamfasting, and I believe that, as I can control the dream and its location, I might be able to use that connection to work magic.”

“What kind of magic?” 

“The kind that will save your life.”

“Then why aren’t you doing it?”

He lowered his gaze.  “It could have consequences.  I cannot predict what kind – depending on where this connection really came from, forcing it open might cause it to become permanent. If your identity slips you could wind up among my memories.  I…do not want that for you.”

“Could it hurt you too?”

“The same risks apply, though to a lesser degree, since I would be the one doing the magic.  It offers me some protection.  But again…I cannot be sure.”

“I’ll take the chance,” I said. “I’m not ready to go. They need me.  And I…”

Our eyes met, and I knew he understood. I wanted to sleep again, to dream again….I wanted to know why all of this was happening…and whatever the cause, whatever the consequences, I wanted to see him again.

I owed Fury another ten bucks.

“All right,” Loki finally said. “Lay back…be still.”

“Kiss me.”

He was surprised by the request – not so much a request as a command – but touched my face with both hands and said softly, “Captain…as much as it pains me to admit, with my pride being what it is, I have thought of you every day since I left.”

“Promise you won’t run off for another five months. Please.  I don’t know what any of it means or what’s going to happen but I know I don’t want this to stop.”

He gave me one of those rare, unvarnished smiles, and kissed me, light contact that caught both of us up in it for a moment, the feeling so amazing I found myself hoping to get shot again as soon as possible.

My eyes were closed, but I could see green light building around me.  I ignored it and pushed my tongue past his lips, feeling my back collide with the mattress, a much more comfortable impact that my earlier one with the ground.

_“Get back! Everybody get back! Don’t touch him!”_

_“Holy shit, is that—“_

_“Get Fury in here – now!”_

I gasped, sucking in a deep breath around the pain in my chest and side.  My vision was full of green-white light at first, but I blinked, and could make out a hospital light fixture over me, slightly blurry.

I heard beeping:  erratic at first, then stumbling into a rhythm.

A face came into view:  a doctor or nurse, in scrubs with a mask on, eyes wide. Her shirt was liberally stained with what had to be my blood. “Captain Rogers,” she said, “You’re in First Victory Medical Center in New York.  I’m Doctor Pittman – we’ve been working on you for over an hour.”

I croaked, “Everyone else…safe?”

“Depends on how you mean safe,” came a voice. I could barely move my head, I was so weak, but I didn’t really need to.  “You stopped the mercs from getting into the compound, but when we went in to secure the occupants, they’d disappeared.  There was a tunnel network under the building even our scans didn’t pick up – shielded by something, probably one of the Enhanced. But far as we can tell everyone got through okay…except you.”

“I’m okay.”

Fury only had about six facial expressions, and most of them involved the word “motherfucker” in the description. Right now it was a toss up between “are you joking, motherfucker?” and “you must be one dumb motherfucker.”

“Steve…you were gone.  You got shot in the kidney and went into shock – they couldn’t find a pulse when you arrived.  They zapped you back twice, but you’d lost too much blood.  They were, and I mean this literally, about to call it. Now…” Fury looked over at the monitors, then back down at me.  “Not only are you alive, but the wound is gone.”

“How…how can it be gone?” 

“You tell me.  Out of nowhere you started glowing bright green.  It got blinding, then sort of exploded and disappeared.”

“Um…Sir?  It wasn’t just Captain Rogers.”  Dr. Pittman reappeared, looking seriously rattled.  “Everyone in the room that was touching him when the light appeared…one of my surgical techs had a broken toe, and it stopped hurting. She’s outside looking at it right now, but…a nurse’s shaving cut vanished.”

“I can see,” someone said.  Fury and Pittman both jerked their eyes toward the corner, where a shaky male voice proclaimed, “My glasses…I took them off to clean them…I don’t need them.  Everything’s crystal clear.”

Fury shook his head.  “Either you’re one hell of a clumsy Jesus, Rogers, or something helped you out in a big way. Any idea what that might be?”

I had a suspicion Fury knew, but I wasn’t ready to admit it.  “Sir…I was unconscious. How would I know?”

“Mmm-hmm.”  Turning to the doctor, Fury said, “Well, I guess give him a shirt and check him out. Sorry for the drama.”

Pittman let out a sigh.  “Sir, you have no idea how much I did _not_ want to be the doctor who let Captain America die on her table.  I don’t care how much blood we have to clean up – it’s a pleasure.”

“Tell that to your orderlies,” Fury noted wryly. “Come on, Cap. Time for a nice hot shower and a debriefing.”

The rest of the day was a blur. I know I got back to HQ and survived the debriefing, and I remember Tash’s wide-eyed stare as she described watching through the OR window while I crashed…then didn’t.

She accompanied me back to my quarters.   “Remember your orders,” she said. “Rest for 48 hours.”

“I don’t need rest,” I said, which was only partly true.  I’d been given a clean bill of health but I was knock-down tired. 

“I think Fury is just waiting to see if you turn into a frog,” Tash told me, taking the key card away when I had trouble with the door.  I was awfully shaky.

She propelled me toward the bed; I’d been back here once to shower, and it had taken a pretty serious act of will not to fall down and sleep for a year.  Now, I could, or at least for two days.  I was really looking forward to it…for more reasons than one.

I smiled as Tash pulled the blankets up over me. I was one of the few people who seemed to bring out her mother hen instincts.  She leaned back against the desk and said, “Look…I know Fury’s being deliberately obtuse about what happened – but I know you know neither he nor I are blind.  We know what that energy looked like.  And given what happened here a few months ago…”

I took a deep breath and skipped to the point. “I don’t know where Loki is, Tash. Yeah, I dreamed about him while I was unconscious – or dead, whatever – but it was somewhere in outer space, not here.  Yes, in the dream he did some kind of magic to save my life.  But I don’t know what it was and there definitely wasn’t any time for discussion about any evil plans he might be hatching.  I swear, Natasha…that’s all I know.”

“Fury was right,” she muttered. “You do blush when you say his name.”

“I do not.”  I was, of course, blushing as I said that. 

“Well…I guess we’ll just have to take your word on it again.  I for one am grateful you’re still with us, though I’m a little worried what the consequences might be.”

I remembered, then, what Loki had said about the magic. “There might be some…even he didn’t know what might happen.  I don’t want to endanger the base – I won’t go back on duty until I’ve had a workup and talked to Fury about it.”

She smiled wryly.  “Only you would volunteer to be considered a liability after getting it on in your sleep with a supervillain.  Weird as it may sound I can kind of see why Loki would be drawn to that – you’re like his polar opposite.”

“Maybe not as much as it seems.”

Tash leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m off to DC for a couple of days on a quickie – stay alive while I’m gone, okay?”

“Yes ma’am.”

I tumbled over the cliff into sleep almost before I heard the door lock.

At first, it was exactly what it should be: sleep. I dreamed about having ice cream with Bucky – it was partly a memory, since we were at a soda fountain and I was too short for my feet to touch the ground at the bar, but it was mixed up with real life, because he had his metal arm.  We were laughing at how awkward it was for him to try and hold a spoon on that side.

It was a good dream, really.  Most of my dreams about Bucky were nightmares from different eras. But at one point, I looked down at my sundae, and my hand was glowing green.

“Do you see that?” I asked.  I looked up at the long mirror behind the bar and saw my eyes were glowing too – I flinched backward, nearly falling off my seat.

Bucky shrugged.  “We are who we are,” he said.  “Who the hell am I to judge?  You’re my best friend no matter who you love.”

I laughed.  “Even if it’s a monster.”

“Oh come on, Steve.  We both know you’d never love a monster.”

As I turned my head, the scene shifted sideways, and then without feeling a change in orientation I was lying down again…and I was definitely present-day me this time.

I felt someone behind me, and turned over. “Hi.”

He gave me an unreadable look. “Captain.  Are you well?”

“Thanks to you, yeah.  So are about five other people who were in the room.”

“I had to act quickly – with the distance and the severity of your injuries I did not give much thought to the blast radius.”

I looked past his shoulder at the scene: same as before, two moons, no waiting. “Is this where you really are right now?”

“No.  Merely a place I thought you might like.”

There was something off in his voice, as well as in his eyes.  They were darker and more shadowed than usual, more blue than green; they seemed to change from one to the other a lot.  I wondered what their real color was, and for just a second remembered that first dream I’d had, where his skin had been blue. 

The circumstances came back to me, too – a nightmare, pain and anguish.  I realized what I was seeing now…and, with a lurch, realized why.

“Were you…listening…in on my dream about Bucky?”

He avoided my eyes.  “The end of it.  I was in the midst of stepping through the dreamtime to where you were. Not intentionally eavesdropping.”

My stomach tightened.  “I didn’t mean that like it sounded, what I said to Buck. I didn’t mean—“

“To call me a monster?  It’s all right, Captain.  You were as honest as you are when awake.  I am a monster.  This…I can imagine how difficult this is for you, knowing you have a connection to something like me that you cannot sever, at least not yet.  I don’t fault you for that.”

“But I don’t think you’re a monster. I mean, I did. Of course I did. But ever since you showed up here, everything’s been…confusing.  I feel like I should be way more conflicted than I am – I should want to turn you in, or like you said break the connection, but I don’t. It’s nuts and it doesn’t make sense, but…I just want…”

The mingled pain and hope in his eyes made my heart ache.

When I understood what I was feeling, and Bucky’s words came back to me, I felt a rush of what was either immense relief, pure joy, or terror.

It might actually have been all three.

“I want you,” I said softly. 

He looked away again.  “You only say that because this is not real.”

“Then come back to Earth.  Let me show you real.”

The certainty in my voice, I think, made him smile a little, giving me that look again – the one I remembered from his time in the Zoo, the look of faint wonder as if after seeing the entire universe I was the strangest thing he’d encountered.  

“Someday,” he replied.  “I think this is better, for now…you can go about your life free of the shadow I might cast over you, and I can avoid being imprisoned or executed by your SHIELD.  And, with a little effort, I can show you places no human has ever seen before…like this one. This is the planet Navaroth, a vacation destination for the inhabitants of four systems. The entire planet is a resort where one’s every desire may be accommodated, privately and expensively.”

As he spoke he shifted me onto my back, leaning in to kiss my ear, then my neck.  I wondered, for a second, if he really liked my neck or just knew how much I loved having it kissed. 

I sighed, closing my eyes.  “I’ve only been on one real vacation.  Most of the time when I travel it’s to kill people…or at least apprehend hot aliens in weird helmets.”

Loki chuckled at that.  “Says the man who dresses like a Fourth of July parade float.”

I laughed aloud that time.  “What do you know about the 4th of July?”

He paused, lifting his head, frowning. “Nothing. That’s odd.  I do have a bit of knowledge of American culture from Agent Barton, but…” He shook his head as if to clear it.  “My mind has grown foggy all of a sudden.”

Loki sat up, and I did the same, laying a hand on his shoulder.  “You said there could be consequences.”

“I did.  I seem to have stumbled into some of your recent memories.”

“Anything bad?”

“Not terribly.  Just strange…this is nothing like what the Scepter caused. The memories are simply added on to my own as if they were mine to begin with.”

I could tell it was pretty unsettling, even if the memories weren’t bad, so I tried to lighten the mood.  “Well let me know if you come across where I left my last set of keys – I haven’t seen them in months.”

He started and looked at me, eyes going wide with astonishment.   “Say that again.”

“What?  About my keys?  I was trying to make a joke. I know it was lame…whoa.”

That time, I heard it.

“That wasn’t English,” I said in a hushed voice, listening hard – I sounded normal again, for now.  “What was that?”

He closed his eyes.  “Jotun.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Good.”

“Well if the worst I get is some extra languages, that’s not too—“

Sound faded from the room, and then light. I thought at first I was waking up, and fought it, but when the images around me began to clear again I was not in my bedroom back at HQ, or even on an operating table.

_“My vizier told me a fantastic tale of a creature falling from the starways to my doorstep…he didn’t mention what a lovely thing you are.”_

_Chains…the stench of blood…stone walls, iron.  A cruel voice, but a powerful one, offering vengeance…vengeance for what? I had done this, I had no one to blame but—_

_Pain. The dull crack of broken bone, the searing agony of a brand charring flesh already bruised and torn. The pain came again, and again, until I lashed out at it, snarling like an animal, flinging a curse at the ugly visage hovering over me.  The magic couldn’t travel farther than my own flesh – there was something around my wrists that blocked it.  I heard myself screaming._

_It was so scaldingly hot on that table…I craved cold, the sweet touch of Winter. Here the heat was so oppressive and thick…the choking humidity was almost worse than what came next, or rather, whom._

_“Shh…there there, little princeling…I’ll order them to stop as soon as you stop wanting them to.  Beg for more…then you will feel relief.”_

_Torn open, mind and body flayed but too strong to die.  Slimy, hot tongues licking blood from my face. The clanking of chains as winches turned to change my position to whatever pleased him or his torturers at the moment._

_I wanted it. I deserved it. I arched toward them even as I shrank away, and gradually the sounds of torment and pleasure blended into each other until the boundaries of neither held any meaning.  There was nothing to hold onto but rage, and fear. Hate._

_“Now, now, I wouldn’t have to do this to you if it weren’t for Thor…all of Asgard…they rejected you, threw you into the abyss, and now here you are, humiliated, used. You’ve been tortured and fucked by three species, all of whom are watching what I’m doing to you right now…and whose fault is it?  You didn’t ask for any of this…you never wanted the throne.  You only wanted to be his equal.”_

_“You are our son, Loki…and we your family.”  I wanted to hold onto that voice, those few words of softness in this jagged, unforgiving place…but there was no room for it, not anymore, not with another of endless rounds of plunging, savage pain and the feeling of my own insides rotting as his come ate through them, almost pure acid and salt._

_“Do you see this, princeling?  Do you know what it is?”  Brilliant blue energy, shining like a star.  “He wants it…and you will bring it to him.  Your reward will be what you have craved all along…power…vengeance…”_

_Yes…yes…I will.  I will kill them all and take what I deserve._

Someone was shaking me violently. I struck out blindly in all directions, pure instinctive terror overcoming all sense, and heard a curse as my fist hit something solid.

“Steve, damn it, wake up!  Wake up!”

A slap, jerking my head to the left; another, jerking it to the right.  I struggled out of sleep and back into my own body with a cry.

Nothing made sense at first.  I was curled up in a ball in the corner, but it wasn’t a dank stone cell, just an ordinary bedroom.  I recognized the shirt crumpled up on the floor nearby.

A spasm of some kind rocked through me, and all my muscles tightened so hard they shook; then it was like someone flipped a switch and I went limp.  All around me I heard things striking other things, some stuff breaking, others just falling.

I slowly lifted my eyes from behind my arms.  

Tash was there, kneeling in front of me; she already had the telltale redness that would turn into one hell of a black eye. Beyond her, half of HQ had come running to my apartment, with Fury closest, actually looking shocked.

All around me was a sort of debris field – pictures had fallen off the walls, books off shelves.  There were alarms going off everywhere.

Even with all of that, though, I only had one thought: “Knock me out. Someone knock me out! Drug me, something! Tash, please –“

“Relax, Steve,” she said.  She put a hand on my head.  “You need to stay calm.”

“Why?”

She looked over at Fury, then back at me. “Because this is what you did when you weren’t.”

I followed her gesture with my eyes, things still not really making sense.  “I don’t…”

“Captain,” Fury said, “Look at your hands.”

I did.

Clarity hit me like a sledgehammer. “Oh my God.”  I tried to get up, but my limbs had lost their coordination. “Is anyone hurt?”

Tash shook her head.  “Well, other than me, no.  The effect seems to have been confined to your quarters.”

“Then why is everyone here?”

“You woke everybody up,” she said simply. “The alarms went off because of the energy spike, but I think what got most people was the screaming.”

“I was…”

“Like you were being tortured.”

I felt sick to my stomach, and lowered my head until it hit the floor.  I could hear most of the assembled crowd slowly retreating, but I knew Tash and Fury weren’t going anywhere. 

When I managed to sit up again I saw Wanda; she approached cautiously, holding out a glass of water.  I took it with a blessedly non-glowing hand and thanked her.

I was totally parched.  My throat felt like it had been coated with sand. I was also drenched in sweat that was now rapidly cooling in the air conditioning, giving me chills.

“What happened, Steve?” Natasha asked after letting me drain the glass.  “The truth.”

I shook my head, though denying what, I didn’t know. “I told you…that magic that kept me alive…it had side effects.  Turns out one of them was memory swapping.”

They exchanged another look.  “All of this was because you were sharing Loki’s memories?”

Feeling sick again, I covered my face with my hands for a minute before continuing.  “Remember how Vision said Loki wasn’t being controlled by the MindStone? Turns out he didn’t need to be. Thanos…that…that bastard…”

“Steve…”

I glanced up and saw the picture frame on my desk was trembling.  Taking a deep breath, I said, “He didn’t have to use an Infinity Stone.  He did it the old fashioned way.  Thanos broke him…I’ve never seen anything like it. But now, I’ve felt it. I felt it...I was there. All this rage and betrayal that was already there...it’s like Thanos took it and twisted it and used it to carve Loki into a weapon.  It felt like he’d done it dozens of times, like it was all a game…he enjoyed it. Laughed.  Even while he…”

I was shaking violently, remembering that inhuman face over me.  Remembering the other creatures he’d invited to take part, as rewards or favors.  It was all entertainment to them. 

I heard Tash tell Fury, “We’ve got to give him something – do we have anything strong enough?”

“I don’t know.  This isn’t exactly a scenario we have a plan for. But you know what has to be done.”

I looked at Fury.  His face told me what I needed to know.

I was out of control.  Dangerous.

Enhanced. 

They had to put me in the Zoo.


End file.
